Real Madrid 1-0 Liverpool: In game and Post Match Debate

If we cant beat Newcastle do we deserve CL? Competitions aren't defined on one or 2 games - in this case they will be. ha

Eh? Toon in the Champions League how did they manage that?

Eh? Toon in the Champions League how did they manage that?

As in 4th+ place. Smart Arse ;-)

Well that was much better wasn't it.

Whilst the results have got me down lately its been the 'effort' that has really pis$ed me off !!

Went for borini as my motm. It was great to see a liverpool striker put a shift in. Actually, he put one in against swansea and was then dropped. He deserves a start against chelsea and hopefully he will get more opportunities.

The defence without lovren and johnson looked much better. Id like to see flanno back it but lets see if kolo and skrtel can form a good partnership.

Can impressed me. This lad, whilst not mascherano closed down, won posession and has alot of power. Starts for me at the weekend.

Markovic put in a better performance. Need to give this lad more time.

Joe Allen ... slow ... brings nothing to the team in attack or defence.

Overall i was pleased with that, despite the loss. Hopefully we can move forward from here. If lovren balotelli johnson etc walk back into this team on saturday we have a problem im afraid.

Well that was much better wasn't it.

Whilst the results have got me down lately its been the 'effort' that has really pis$ed me off !!

Went for borini as my motm. It was great to see a liverpool striker put a shift in. Actually, he put one in against swansea and was then dropped. He deserves a start against chelsea and hopefully he will get more opportunities.

The defence without lovren and johnson looked much better. Id like to see flanno back it but lets see if kolo and skrtel can form a good partnership.

Can impressed me. This lad, whilst not mascherano closed down, won posession and has alot of power. Starts for me at the weekend.

Markovic put in a better performance. Need to give this lad more time.

Joe Allen ... slow ... brings nothing to the team in attack or defence.

Overall i was pleased with that, despite the loss. Hopefully we can move forward from here. If lovren balotelli johnson etc walk back into this team on saturday we have a problem im afraid.

Joe Allen did have a bad game but he is a great squad player and normally does a job if unspectacular

Have to say this game was similar to the United derby last weekend.

All rival fans were making fun of United because they got beat and rarely created any chances. But they knew there was a big improvement in terms of passing and attacking movement.

Same thing for us too, the pass and move football and composure on the ball was there to see. Put Sturridge and Coutinho instead of Allen and Borini, that would be enough for most of the PL teams.

However the question is, will BR select the likes of Toure, Lucas,Can ahead of Lovren, Gerrard , Allen etc?

Uefa's rules for the Champions League require all teams to "field their strongest team throughout the competition", but the governing body will not be taking any action against the Merseysiders for their selection in the Spanish capital.

From BBC

Why is it  so hard to understand that we dropped the players due to form than fielding a weak team !

Someone pl verify if this is correct. Lets say Basel win their game vs Madrid by the odd goal improving their GD to +1 (9 pts). If we win away at Ludo at least by a goal, our GD becomes -3 (6 pts).

So we have got to beat Basel 4-0 at Anfield to progress?

Another funny thing is we didn't had a single english player in the starting XI. Which must have pissed the english media off 

Have to say this game was similar to the United derby last weekend.

All rival fans were making fun of United because they got beat and rarely created any chances. But they knew there was a big improvement in terms of passing and attacking movement.

Same thing for us too, the pass and move football and composure on the ball was there to see. Put Sturridge and Coutinho instead of Allen and Borini, that would be enough for most of the PL teams.

However the question is, will BR select the likes of Toure, Lucas,Can ahead of Lovren, Gerrard , Allen etc?

Can for Gerarrd = NO
REASON: they could both play from the start, with Gerrard playing further forward

Toure for Lovren = NO
REASON: although he had a good game last night Toure is an accident waitng to happen. He cannot be trusted long term.
As an emergency injury-sub, maybe... but not as a replacement for ANYONE at currently at the club.
I'd rather see Wisdom and Illoris get their games as CB

Someone pl verify if this is correct. Lets say Basel win their game vs Madrid by the odd goal improving their GD to +1 (9 pts). If we win away at Ludo at least by a goal, our GD becomes -3 (6 pts).

So we have got to beat Basel 4-0 at Anfield to progress?

3-0 would do it. 2-0 makes will take it to the total number of goals scored.

Someone pl verify if this is correct. Lets say Basel win their game vs Madrid by the odd goal improving their GD to +1 (9 pts). If we win away at Ludo at least by a goal, our GD becomes -3 (6 pts).

So we have got to beat Basel 4-0 at Anfield to progress?

Goal difference doesn't come in to it, it's head to head results. So long as we beat Basel by more goals than they beat us by we will qualify regardless of what they do.

Well that was much better wasn't it.

Whilst the results have got me down lately its been the 'effort' that has really pis$ed me off !!

Went for borini as my motm. It was great to see a liverpool striker put a shift in. Actually, he put one in against swansea and was then dropped. He deserves a start against chelsea and hopefully he will get more opportunities.

The defence without lovren and johnson looked much better. Id like to see flanno back it but lets see if kolo and skrtel can form a good partnership.

Can impressed me. This lad, whilst not mascherano closed down, won posession and has alot of power. Starts for me at the weekend.

Markovic put in a better performance. Need to give this lad more time.

Joe Allen ... slow ... brings nothing to the team in attack or defence.

Overall i was pleased with that, despite the loss. Hopefully we can move forward from here. If lovren balotelli johnson etc walk back into this team on saturday we have a problem im afraid.

Pretty much agree with this, although I'd prefer to see Sakho and Toure form a partnership. ATM, Can looks sluggish. 2nd half he looked knackered. Perhaps due to the extended layoff. The odd glimpse from Markowic was there, but still needs to work harder. Allen was a waste of time. Simple.

As much as I criticise Migs, he made 8 saves last night.

As much as I criticise Migs, he made 8 saves last night.

I think the performance of Mignolet had more to do with the score difference between home and away than anything else tbh.

Kolo played well but the talk of him having Ronaldo in his pocket... Ronaldo had 10 shots last night - 6 more than the whole Liverpool team.

When you have taken away all expectation, anything less than total disaster seems like a victory.

I think the performance of Mignolet had more to do with the score difference between home and away than anything else tbh.

Kolo played well but the talk of him having Ronaldo in his pocket... Ronaldo had 10 shots last night - 6 more than the whole Liverpool team.

Entire team pressed hard all game. Our form coming into versus Madrids forms was the stuff of nightmares.

I think Brendan addressed some serious problems last night. Now he needs to stick with some of the players.

Start Emre Can to begin with.

Has been mentioned by lots what we are missing is fire power up front. The return of Danny on the weekend should be a big help.

3-0 would do it. 2-0 makes will take it to the total number of goals scored.

I think we just have to ensure we win our last two games but beat Basle by 2 clear goals. Positions are decided by head to head results if teams are level on points... we lost 1-0 to Basle so we have to win 2-0 or equivalent to progress, even if Basle beat Madrid 6-0 .

From BBC

Why is it  so hard to understand that we dropped the players due to form than fielding a weak team !

That rule has always pissed me off.

Only the manager of a team knows his strongest side for any given game and its not for some suit to sit and decide otherwise and punish a club.

Has been mentioned by lots what we are missing is fire power up front. The return of Danny on the weekend should be a big help.

You know what? I finally understand the mystery now. We were too reliant on Luis and Danny's mobility last year. Their movement and desire to get to end of passes made many of our midfielders' poor passes look great. This year, we needed to make the prefect pass to get the ball to our strikers, due to their immobility and comparatively weaker desire. And to begin with, we can't pass perfectly with pin point accuracy all the time. Explains our lack of goals and passage of play in the final third.

So we need to get a result against the Luds, hope that Madrid turn up vs Basel, then its a 'winner takes all' game at Anfield (not unlike Olympiakos....) to go through to the knock out stage

Would rather we had more points in the bag, but I'll take the above chance right now

That was a lot better in terms of a team playing football. It was always going to be nearly impossible to beat Real at the Bernebau but for large chunks of the game we are in control of the game and crucially the defence looked much much more solid. If only we'd have a little more spark up front I think we could have got somethign out of that game.
I also started to see glimpses of what MArkovic can bring to the team and lucas has t start instead of Stevie for me, and then we use Stevie as impact sub up front.

Also big big praise to Brendan, he answered my wish to show some balls and shake up the team a bit, I just hope and pray he doesn't return to the default crap team at the weekend with Balotelli up front.